Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
THIRD GATE
N O V E L
LINCOLN
CHILD
Anchor Books
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York
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Logan had been in Cairo only once before, as a graduate student documenting the movements of Frisian
soldiers during the Fifth Crusade. And it seemed to
him as they drove along the highway from Cairo
International as if all the cars hed noticed twenty
years before were still on the road. Ancient Fiats and
Mercedes Benzes, sporting dents and broken headlights, jockeyed frantically for position, making their
own impromptu lanes at sixty miles per hour. They
passed buses, decrepit and rusting, people hanging precariously from empty frames where the passenger entrances ought to have been. Now and then
Logan caught sight of late-model European sedans,
brilliantly polished and almost invariably black.
But aside from these exceptions, the freeway traffic seemed one feverish anachronism, a time capsule
from an earlier age.
Logan and Rush sat in the rear of the car, silently
taking in the sights. Logans luggage had been left on
the plane, and their driver a local driving a Renault
only slightly less aged than those around them had
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mosque, then another, the chant moving Dopplerlike into greater and greater distances, until it seemed
to echo across the entire city.
He felt a tug at his elbow. It was Rush. Logan
turned and stepped inside.
The ancient structure was crowded even at
this early hour, but the sweaty throngs had not yet
warmed the stone galleries. After the fierce sunlight,
the interior of the museum seemed exceedingly dark.
They made their way through the ground floor, past
innumerable statuary and stone tablets. Despite signs
bearing warnings against camera usage and forbidding the touching of artifacts, Logan noticed that
even nowmany of the exhibits were still open to
the air rather than hermetically sealed, and showed
signs of extensive handling. Passing the last of the
galleries, they mounted a broad fl ight of stairs to the
fi rst floor. Here were row upon row of sarcophagi,
laid out on stone plinths like sentinels of the shadow
world. Along the walls were glass-fronted cabinets
containing funerary objects of gold and faience, the
cases locked with simple seals of lead and wire.
Mind if I take a moment to inspect the grave
goods of Ramses III? Logan asked, pointing toward
a doorway. I believe its down that passage. I recently read in the Journal of Antiquarian Studies
of a certain alabaster canopic vase one could use to
summon
But Rush smiled apologetically, pointed at his
watch, and merely urged Logan on.
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notebooks, and thick bundles of papyri, fastened together with desiccated leather stitching and in apparent disarray.
As Rush closed the door behind them, Logan
took a step into the room. It smelled strongly of wax
and decaying paper. This was precisely the kind of
place he could find himself very much at home in:
a clearinghouse for the distant past, a repository of
secrets and riddles and strange chronicles, all waiting patiently to be rediscovered and brought into the
light. He had spent more than his fair share of time
in such rooms. And yet his experience was primarily in medieval abbeys and cathedral crypts and the
restricted collections of university libraries. The artifacts here the histories and the narratives, and the
dead language most of them were written inwere
very, very much older.
In the center of the room was a single research
table, long and narrow, surrounded by a half-dozen
chairs. The room had been so dark and still that Logan had believed them to be alone. But now, as his
eyes adjusted, he noticed a man in Arab garb seated
at the table, his back to them, hunched over an ancient scroll. He had not moved at their entrance, and
did not move now. He appeared completely engrossed
in his reading.
Rush took a step forward to stand beside Logan.
Then he quietly cleared his throat.
For a long moment, the figure did not move. Then
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Logan took a step backward. He saw Rushs hand
approach his elbow and instinctively brushed it aside.
Already the shock was passing, replaced by curiosity.
Dr. Logan, Stone said, Im sorry to surprise
you like this. But, as you can no doubt appreciate, I
am forced to keep the very lowest of profi les.
He smiled, but the smile did not extend as far as
his eyes. Those eyes were far more piercing, more brilliant, than the pointillist photo on the cover of Fortune
had conveyed. Behind them clearly burned not only a
fierce intelligence but an unslakable hungerfor antiquities or wealth or merely knowledge, Logan could
not surmise. The man was taller than hed expected.
But the frame beneath the Arab garb was just as thin
as the photos in the press had led him to believe.
Stone nodded to Rush. As the doctor turned to
lock the door, Stone shook Logans hand, then gestured for him to have a seat. Logan drew no particular impression from the handshakejust a fierce
energy out of keeping with such a gaunt frame and
almost effeminate features.
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Pembridge Barrow.
Logan sat up in surprise. You dont mean to say
you read
I did indeed, Stone replied.
Logan looked at the treasure hunter with fresh
respect. Pembridge Barrow had been one of Stones
smaller, but historically more spectacular, discoveries: a burial pit in Wales that contained the remains
of what most scholars agreed was the fi rst-century
English queen Boadicea. She had been found buried
in an ancient war chariot, surrounded by weapons,
golden armbands, and other trinkets. In making the
find, Stone had solved a mystery that had plagued English historians for centuries.
As you know, Stone continued, the scholarly elite always maintained Boadicea met her end
at the hands of the Roman legions in Exeter, or perhaps Warwickshire. But it was your own graduate
dissertationin which you argued she survived those
battles to be buried with full warriors honors that
led me to Pembridge.
Based on projected movements of Roman search
parties far removed from the Watling Road, Logan
replied. I guess I should feel honored. He was impressed with Stones thoroughness.
But I didnt summon you here to speak of that.
I wanted you to understand just what youre getting
yourself involved in. Stone leaned forward. Im not
going to ask you to sign a blood oath or anything so
melodramatic.
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out the grimy spectacles, fiddled with them a moment, placed them on the table.
Except that it doesnt end. Because in 1941
after years of sedentary retirement Petrie abruptly
left Jerusalem, bound for Cairo. He told none of his
old colleagues at the British School of Archaeology
about this new expedition of his and there can be
no doubt that it was an expedition. He took a bare
minimum of staff: two or three at most, and those
I suspect only because of his age and growing infi rmity. He made no request for grants; it would appear
he sold several of his most prized artifacts to fi nance
the trip. None of these things were in character for
Petriebut strangest of all was his haste. He had always been known for careful, deliberate scholarship.
But this trip to Egypt, with North Africa already
deep in the throes of war, was the polar opposite of
deliberation. It seems to have been frantic almost
desperate.
Stone paused to take a sip from the tiny cup of
coffee. The air was briefly perfumed with the scent of
qahwa sada.
Where exactly Petrie wentwhy he wentwas
not known. What was known is that he returned to
Jerusalem five months later, alone, funds depleted.
He would not speak of where hed been. His air of
desperation remained, yet the journey had sorely
weakened an already enfeebled body. He died not
long afterward in Jerusalem, in 1942, apparently
while raising funds for yet another return to Egypt.
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